In the plays of Aristophanes the homosexual eros is often reduced to the crudest physical terms, to vulgar and realistic references and becomes the privileged object of jokes and insults. This vulgarity is not just an opportunity to make the audience laugh, but it is an essential ingredient of political satire. With this goal, Aristophanes takes Cleisthenes out of the Athenian public life, an outcast in public opinion, the object of ridicule, depicted as an effeminate male prostitute; the poet uses him in order to associate with him the "new" politicians who are, in his opinion, worthy of discredit. Among these people, the demagogue Cleonymos is most often cited. As Cleisthenes, Cleonymos is the favorite target of Aristophanes and is immediately approached to Cleisthenes himself and then gradually assimilated to the effeminate man par excellence: with a violent aim of social exclusion, his representation as an effeminate homosexual (always and only in the passive role) becomes a powerful weapon to delegitimize an entire generation of politicians of low extraction, which are, according to the poet, unworthy by nature just as the effeminate citizens.
Les différences de genre et les habitudes sexuelles entre satire comique et délégitimation politique : les cas de Cléonymos et Clisthène d'Athènes chez Aristophane
CUNIBERTI, Gianluca
2014-01-01
Abstract
In the plays of Aristophanes the homosexual eros is often reduced to the crudest physical terms, to vulgar and realistic references and becomes the privileged object of jokes and insults. This vulgarity is not just an opportunity to make the audience laugh, but it is an essential ingredient of political satire. With this goal, Aristophanes takes Cleisthenes out of the Athenian public life, an outcast in public opinion, the object of ridicule, depicted as an effeminate male prostitute; the poet uses him in order to associate with him the "new" politicians who are, in his opinion, worthy of discredit. Among these people, the demagogue Cleonymos is most often cited. As Cleisthenes, Cleonymos is the favorite target of Aristophanes and is immediately approached to Cleisthenes himself and then gradually assimilated to the effeminate man par excellence: with a violent aim of social exclusion, his representation as an effeminate homosexual (always and only in the passive role) becomes a powerful weapon to delegitimize an entire generation of politicians of low extraction, which are, according to the poet, unworthy by nature just as the effeminate citizens.
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